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Clear The Tracks The Story of an Old Time Locomotive Engineer Hard Cover
Clear The Tracks The Story of an Old Time Locomotive Engineer By Joseph Bromley
288 Pages
Copyright 1943
Hard Cover
Contents
1. THE OLD BLACK RIVER LINE
2. THE GRAVEL PIT11
3. DEATH ON THE BUTTERFLY25
4. ON THE MAIN IRON39
5. ROSE OF CEDARVILLE CROSSING54
6. BOOMERS ON THE COAL69
7. THE OVERALLS HOP83
8. THE PAY-OFF97
9. THE TRIUMPH OF SITTING BULL196
10. THE OLD MAN EATS DIRT120
11. PROMOTION131
12. THE GREAT BLIZZARD144
13. THE GRIEVANCE COMMITTEE159
14. THE RUNAWAY TRAIN170
15. THE HANGING OF RIG MILLER184
16. NO FLIES ON GROVER196
17. ENGINE 26209
18. THE MILK-WHITE COCKEREL 222
19. THE KILLER240
20. MAINLINER256
21. EXIT THE OLD MAN270
22. GHOST OF THE OLD MAN284
I have tried to recapture the old days on the Lackawanna in memory of the veterans who were my heroes when I first began to ride the engines: Tom Thatcher, the "Old Man," whose accusing glass eye struck terror to the very marrow of my bones; A. C. Salsbury, the "Supe"; John Teller, William Reese, Nick Kuhn, Billy Worrell, Fred Willkie, John Keach, James Watson, Pat Grace, John Yeoman, Tracy Shaw, Frank Quinncon-ductors and engineers on the Utica Division. They have long since made their last run west, but they live in the memory of many an old-timer who learned his job in those grand, prodigious days of the railroads.
A HUMOROUS and nostalgic story of the good old days when railroading, like most other professions, was a personalized affair.
To young Joe Bromley there was a special fascination and glamor attached to the engineers, those lords of labor, with their waxed mustaches sticking out like yardarms and their heavy gold watch chains stretched like cables across their ample fronts; rivaled in splendor only by the portraits of presidents and governors painted on the sides of passenger coaches.
Railroading was in his blood, with adventure and excitement marking each phase of his long and varied career. Ile began as "callboy" and at seventeen was chucking timber into one of the last of the old wood-burning engines. At twenty, Bromley was promoted to the right-hand side of the cab, the youngest engineer on the road.
He began in the days when each engine was as individual as its engineer, and each road was a unit in itself. It wasn't against the rules to give that special "two-toots-and-a-blast" to let a wife know you'd be home soon and during the summer you could pull a freight onto a siding for a few hours while the crew went fishing, for timetables were for the crack passenger trains only. But highballing home was ticklish business, for the hand brakes didn't always work to perfection.
Above and beyond his personal story, Mr. Bromley shows the growth of railroading from the early wood-burning days to the present. Entertaining and amusing the book aptly recaptures these days with all their humorous robust charm.
"All the glamor of both the era and the instrument of America's expansion, the steam locomotive. is in this hook. To anyone who has felt the wanderlust of a train whistle winding through the night-and is the man living who hasn't -here is the chance to climb aboard for a cab ride with a railroad man whose pen is as bright and nostalgic as the brass of his black, belching engines."
"It contains no heroics, but a lot of grand railroad stuff that is told simply and with the best of humor."
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